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The jilting of granny weatherall
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall (By Katherine Anne Porter
The jilting of granny weatherall
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In both Katherine Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live in the P.O.”, the main characters deal with family members they frankly do not like. Due to both of their being jilted by men, they are full of resentment and anger causing these women to leave their families on bad terms. Porter and Welty are presenting through the character’s flashbacks and memories that we should pick our battles wisely when it comes to our families because one day they will be gone and, some of us might miss our deceased loved ones, like Granny from “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, or be filled with a hatred towards them, like Sister from “Why I Live in the P.O.”. Porter and Welty both provide flashbacks and memories in their stories to help the reader see what Granny and Sister’s lives were like before everything fell apart with their families. Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” is packed of the flashbacks and memories of Granny’s past relationships with the only people she loves even though are all dead. She reminisced about her youthful days when she was strong, independent, and with John, the man who stood her up at the altar and died when Granny was young. She still loves him and wants to see him, but “John would be looking for a young woman with the peaked Spanish comb in her hair and the painted fan,” (Porter 81) she believed he would not recognize her. Granny also lost one of her daughters, Hapsy along with her newborn who also died. When Granny brought those memories to the surface a fog of darkness, clouds reality and she gets lost and recalls that, “there was the day, the day, but a whirl of dark smoke rose and covered it, crept up and over into the bright field where everything was planted so c... ... middle of paper ... ...to be pertinacious like Sister. The flashbacks allow the reader to go back with the characters and see what we missed out on, example; Granny’s happier days, when she had her man and she was strong and young, or Sister’s happier days when she also had her man and was treated respectably by certain members of her family. Furthermore, I believe the point both authors proposed was this, “Choose battles wisely and forgive or, forever suffer continuous loss.” Works Cited Porter, Katherine. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 79-86. Print. Welty, Eudora. “Why I Live at the P.O.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 42-50. Print.
The Grandmother often finds herself at odds with the rest of her family. Everyone feels her domineering attitude over her family, even the youngest child knows that she's "afraid she'd miss something she has to go everywhere we go"(Good Man 2). Yet this accusation doesn't seem to phase the grandmother, and when it is her fault alone that the family gets into the car accident and is found by the Misfit, she decides to try to talk her way out of this terrible predicament.
In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter, we learn of an elderly woman who is lying on her death bed watching her life pass before her eyes. We learn, from these flashbacks, how much she has overcome and endured, and how she's put her whole heart into being a mother and wife up until her last breath, when she blew out the candle and rode with her Father in a cart to heaven. It’s this very reason why Porter, in my opinion, chose Granny as the narrator of this story; so we could see the story through her eyes, being able to relate and appreciate it better.
... mold of a traditional woman throughout her entire life. She set new standards for women regarding relationships. She dared to get divorces, to leave an abusive man, to leave a cheating man, to have a lover, even to marry a much younger man, but more importantly she dared to write about these controversial topics. Readers may get a sense of Granny's bitterness toward men, but they cannot ignore her strength and independence. Porter was a part of the "era of exuberance" because she played her role in the evolution of women. The answer to the question posed at the beginning of this paper is the same question women of the early twentieth century began asking themselves. This question became a choice for them. Porter chose to be strong because of her ability to move on, and by the time she became Granny Weatherall she knew she had achieved what she had set out to do.
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
In "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," there are two themes. The first is self-pity. The second theme is the acceptance of her death. Both deal with the way people perceive their deaths and mortality in general. Granny Weatherall's behavior is Porter's tool for making these themes visible to the reader. The theme of self-pity is obvious and thoroughly explored early on. As a young lady, Granny Weatherall was left at the altar on her wedding day. As a result, the pathetic woman feels sorry for herself for the rest of her life. She becomes a bitter old woman who is suspicious of everyone around her. This point is shown early in the story when the do Granny Weatherall, the main character in Katherine Anne Porter's The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, is an 80-year-old elderly woman who is at the doorstep of death. There is a sense of disillusionment with Granny that leads readers to develop their own interpretation of her relationship with Cornelia, her daughter As the narrator, Granny unknowingly would paint the picture of Cornelia as nuisance and bothersome. In fact, the reader can rationalize that it is just Cornelia's concern for an ailing mother that creates the situation of her seemingly being there all the time.
Welty, Eudora. “Why I Live at the P.O.” Discovering a Voice: A Rhetoric for Writers. The University of West Alabama. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead, 2009. 359-67. Print.
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” a short story by Katherine Anne Porter, describes the last thoughts, feelings, and memories of an elderly woman. As Granny Weatherall’s life literally “flashes” before her eyes, the importance of the title of the story becomes obvious. Granny Weatherall has been in some way deceived or disappointed in every love relationship of her life. Her past lover George, husband John, daughter Cornelia, and God all did an injustice by what Porter refers to as “jilting.” This unending cycle of wrongdoing caused Granny to be a mixture of strength, bitterness, and ultimate fear as she faces her last moments in life.
Common among classic literature, the theme of mortality engages readers on a quest of coping with one of the certainties of life. Katherine Anne Porter masterfully embraces the theme of mortality both directly and indirectly in her story, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Understanding that all mankind ultimately becomes subject to death unleashes feelings of dread and anxiety in most people; however, Granny Weatherall transitions from rushing to meet her demise in her sixties to completely denying she is on her deathbed when she is eighty. Readers have seen this theme of mortality reverberated over and over in literature, but what makes this story stand the test of time is the author’s complexity. In Katherine Anne Porter’s
Porter, Katherine Anne. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature Portfolio. Eds. Desmet, Christy, D. Alexis Hart, and Deborah Church Miller. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 204-211. Print.
Flashbacks are an apparatus where the screenwriter gives the pursuer and gathering of people with visual data that he or she can't consolidate into the screenplay whatever other way. The reason for the flashback is straightforward. It is a method that extends the time, place and activity. Likewise it uncovers data about the character, or propels the story. Ordinarily, an essayist tosses a flashback into the screenplay in light of the fact that he or she doesn't know how to advance the story some other way. Now and again, the screenwriter chooses to show something about the principle character. It could be better expressed in dialog, and, all things considered, the flashback just attracts consideration regarding itself and gets to be meddling. That doesn't work.
Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” was first published in 1930. The story is about an elderly woman named Granny Weatherall, who is on her deathbed. On her deathbed Granny remembers her life and what she went through. Granny was surrounded by her family and friends as she takes her last breath. Many scholars dispute the theme of “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” One of the most arguable themes is that the story is about heaven being real and that Granny being saved.
Everyone wants a perfect family, but nothing is ever perfect. The family in “Why I Live at the P.O.” is most definitely less than perfect. When Stella-Rondo returns to her old home after leaving her husband and bringing her small child who she claims is adopted, much conflict in the family increases. Stella-Rondo turns every family member living in the household against Sister, her older sister, and every family member betrays Sister by believing the lies Stella-Rondo tells about Sister to them. Through much turmoil and distress, Sister becomes so overwhelmed with the unending conflict that she feels she must leave her home and live at the post office. In “Why I Live at the P.O.,” Eudora Welty strongly implies that the function of the family can rapidly decline when family members refuse to do certain things they should and do certain things they should not through her use of point of view, symbolism, and setting.
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Ann Porter is a short story about an elderly woman on her deathbed. The setting of the story takes place in the mind of Granny Weatherall and allows for a stream of consciousness. Katherine Ann Porter utilizes this unique setting to portray how a momentous event impacted Granny Weatherall’s life and personality. Nearly sixty years before the time of the story Granny was jilted at the altar by her fiancé George. Now, as she lays dying this is one of the just a few memories she is reflecting on. Granny’s reflection on her jilting only seems natural because the event impacted nearly every part of her life, including her fear of wastefulness, her organized lifestyle, and the ability to truly love.